This post arrived in my inbox at just the right time. I have one week to go till I re-submit my PhD thesis, my family have gone ahead to South Africa, and I am alone with this work, gifted with a slice of time to birth it, temporarily freed from the obligations of family life. Yet, I feel this heaviness, and fear, despite being so close to the finish. It stops me in my tracks. Dangerous quicksands. So this felt like a miracle. A reminder to tread lightly through these last tasks, to allow them the space to happen, and continue to proceed one light step at a time towards completion. As Brenda puts it so well in her post, ‘I go small and lightly so I don’t stop completely and let insecurity win’. Beautiful and timely words indeed.

It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them…So throw away your baggage and go forward. There are quicksands all about you, sucking at your feet, trying to suck you down into fear and self-pity and despair. That’s why you must walk so lightly. ~ Aldous Huxley, Island

I have the hardest time going lightly. I’m damn sensitive. I absorb every comment, look and gesture. Criticism is felt deeply, so is praise. I can’t turn it off. My friend tells me I analyze too much but I secretly know I love to analyze and it is natural and involuntary for me. When you intensely process life you do not go lightly.